Friday, March 27, 2009

I'm sorry, but this is just too moronic not to mention. You heard about Michelle Bachman's remarks the other day about a "global currency"? And how about that she's introducing legislation against a "global currency"? Scott Horton:

It seems that those who originated and adopted this idea do not understand what a “reserve currency” is. Since shortly after the end of World War II, the world has had a currency that is de facto dominant and has been held by central banks around the world as a reserve (much in the way the world held gold reserves before World War II). That currency is the United States dollar. The fact that a global consensus is emerging against this practice is a powerful statement indicating a lack of confidence in the U.S. economy. But it has nothing to do with the creation of a “global currency.” Nonetheless, this incident is extremely useful: it allows us to pinpoint economic illiterates. Which leaves an important question: how do illiterates get such swift access to the airwaves?

Even being generous and granting that she simply doesn't know much about economics, it is extraordinary that the idea has gone so far as to be introduced legislation. I mean, doesn't proposing legislation involve a team of people and at least some time for reflection?

Bachmann: Right now I'm a member of Congress. And I believe that my job here is to be a foreign correspondent, reporting from enemy lines. And people need to understand, this isn't a game. this isn't just a political talk show that's happening right now. This is our very freedom, and we have 230 years, a continuous link of freedom that every generation has ceded to the next generation. This may be the time when that link breaks. And I'm going to do everything I can, I know you are, to make sure that we keep that link secure. We cannot allow that link to break, because as Reagan said, America is the last great hope of mankind. where do we go--

Hannity: The last great hope of man on this Earth.

Bachmann: Do we get into an inner tube and float 90 miles to some free country? There is no free country for us to repair to. That's why it's up to us now. The founders gave everything they had to give us this freedom. Now it's up to us to give everything we can to make sure that our kids are free, too. It's that serious. I hate to be dramatic, but--

One might legitimately disagree with Obama's budget, but here we're talking about people from cuckoo land. I know this has been around a long time. My family is true-blue Republican conservative. I disagree with them on a lot of things, but I've always been able to understand them. The current wave of absolute hysteria on the right, however, is an incomprehensible leap out of reality formed through the most simplistic, superficial, incoherent, and almost always hypocritical understandings of the terms they purport to worship - like "freedom." Or even just something as basic as "economics." If Bachmann weren't a Republican hack, she might be considered an unstable threat to the people around her. But we apparently coddle in politics what in the real world would be called insanity.

3 comments:

They claim twenty million listeners and rising. Our local station carries it for five hours each day. They live ,shop, work and vote next to me.They have never traveled anywhere and they are proudly, fanatically ignorant and, up here at least, very well armed.

I recognize there is a huge difference between the reserve currency for each individual nation(which, at this point depends on the country, but in most cases is the greenback), the kind of basket-of-currency imf instrument that the chinese economist Zhou suggested in late march, and the US national currency.

EU-style issues aside, I do think that China has a unique position to try something; it's got a lot of dollar (in particular american dollar) reserves, the incentives to try something, and the rest of the world economy, depending what day in the past month or so you take the litmus test, can be seen as either doing just barely ok to a step away from some kind of unseen before collapse. Although Zhou made very clear that it wasn't what he intended...it's not unthinkable at this point that they could try such a thing as1) getting countries to use this basket-currency investment instead of the greenback as their reserve, especially those who are beholden to the IMF(which in this day and age will include countries like iceland, and likely soon the UK and possibly even the US).2) getting countries who are using this basket-currency investment to fix it to their currency...etc

The original press release from which I saw march 23rd on the matter of the basket-of-currencies seems to be taken down(typical of chinese government materials--I should have mirrored it I guess), but if implemented it would put China in a position to do more than I think is stated by some.

Here is a link to someone who uses a "global currency" in quotes. It's sort of a random example(I found him on the peking duck) but exactly the kind of thing that probably caused Bachman to take the steps they have. It seems like it's in reference to the same things---is it?

Are they incorrect at, even the term 'global currency' to even approximate what they are referring to? Are they that wrong? Is it so unthinkable that what they are talking about would be in the PRC government's best interests?

I think we would all benefit if you came over to that blog to correct them, if they are mistaken, or to at least clarify why, because it seems that there are two incompatible statements being made here, and it isn't clear which of you is more on track. Is it just my thinking which is clouded, perhaps? Is there no incompatibilities here? Perhaps I misread Zhou's report?